Chapter 5

Thank God school was over. Last week had been brutal. Freshman final exams were horrible enough but my parents were being nasty every night as well. I couldn't figure it out; I mean, yeah, I was a freak and that's scary but my parents didn't act like they were scared. They acted like they were homicidally angry ... and they never mentioned exactly why they were angry. This wasn't the usual silent treatment where they wait for me to incriminate myself (hey, Mom's an ADA – I pick up some of the lingo from time to time). They were in a towering rage and couldn't even bring themselves to speak to me.

I hadn't realized that not confiding in them could be so bad.

Yeah, I knew that wasn't the reason they were angry – but I like pretending. Occasionally, I can even fool myself. For a while.

I'm sure that I wasn't the first kid in the history of the world to rebel against his parents and demonstrate that they were powerless to stop him. I suppose I was the first to actually prove it by super-speeding away from them ... but that was just a variation on a theme. It didn't explain this over-powering rage they seemed to suddenly be inflicted with. I had never known my parents to be this unreasonable. I had never seen them take something to this level before.

No matter how hard I thought about it, it just didn't make sense ... and I didn't know what I could do to stop it. Believe me, in the past week I'd thought often about begging their forgiveness. For all my bluster, I really did love my parents ... and I needed them. I wasn't so far gone as to believe that I didn't. I couldn't let them send me away to some laboratory somewhere, though. I just couldn't do that.

Every time I tried to fall on the mercy of the court, though, they just growled at me before I could get more than a word out. I'm not exaggerating and I'm not making this up. They literally were GROWLING at me. And the look in their eyes told me that they meant it. The look in their eyes scared the crap out of me. It scared me so much I started to lock my door at night. It was weird; I wasn't sure I was safe in my own room.

I couldn't live like this. I just couldn't. It was weighing on me. I wasn't sleeping much anymore and I was having trouble concentrating. That isn't good for a freshman taking final exams. How I made it through I'll never know.

I even stopped speeding up and running at night. The first time I'd tried it I'd found them almost waiting for me in the hallway, watching my door. It looked like they were switching shifts or something for God's sake. Looking at their faces in slow motion, their faces contorted in a snarl, freaked me out more than anything else they'd done. I mean, I could actually see the burning anger in their eyes.

I did what any self-respecting speedster would do. I closed and locked my door as quickly as I could and sat down at my bed. For a little while, I could literally hear them breathing on the other side of my door and I waited for them to try the handle. They never did, though. They never said anything about it, either. It was enough to put a stop to my extra-speed excursions. I just never wanted to see them like that ever again.

I didn't stop speeding up, though. It was just too good of a way to cram before exams to stop. I did make sure my door was locked, though. I even went so far as to buy a deadbolt after school and install it on my door at super speed. If my parents saw it, they didn't say a word about it. Not that I expected them to say anything – they barely even looked at me anymore much less talk to me.

"Earth to Reece," John laughed, clapping me on the shoulder.

"Sorry, buddy," I said, shaking my head. "I've got a lot on my mind lately."

"Yeah, I can see that," John said, his face growing serious. "Is everything okay? You look like hell lately. Your eyes are all puffy; it looks like you haven't slept in a week."

"Long story," I said with a forced smile.

"So, I've got a lot of time," John said, navigating me out of traffic. Kids were screaming and yelling and generally having a great time horsing around in the halls. It was the end of school for the summer and we were blowing off some steam. The teachers, bless their devious, evil, little hearts, were letting us. I think they were happy to be rid of us little maniacs for a few months, too. "Spill it."

"Let's just say that I did something to make my parents really mad at me," I said, giving him the briefest, most generic version of the truth I can think of. I don't like to lie. I'd gone through a politician phase when I was 9 where you could tell I was lying because my lips were moving. The problem was, it was difficult to keep all of those stories straight so inevitably I got caught. Since then, I'd followed my paternal Grandpa Bruce's advice – always tell the truth, just not always ALL of the truth. Amazingly, it actually worked.

"So, make it up to them," John said. "Hurry up, too. Parents can hold a freaking grudge and you don't want this over your head all summer."

"That's just it," I said in frustration. "I don't know what it is that I've done. Not only that, but I've never seen them this mad ... and I can't think of anything I've done to cause it. I'm completely clueless."

"So, ask them," John said reasonably. I didn't want reasonable. I wanted comfort.

"Yeah, I guess," I replied more to shut him up than to agree with him.

"Listen, man," John said, looking at me in a stern face, his eyebrows up near his hairline. "Ask them what you've done, make it up to them, and do it fast. Really fast. My mom is letting me have a little 'end of school' get together this Saturday with some friends. And she's agreed to be out of the house with my Dad all weekend." He rolled his eyes. "Well, Meredith and some of her friends are going to be there, too, but she's agreed to a totally blind eye as long as we give the same to her friends ... and we don't bug them at all."